The present invention relates to a coin, or the like, dispensing apparatus.
In the following, the term “coin” will be used to mean coins, tokens or the like.
The Compact Hopper™ made by Money Controls Limited of New Coin Street, Royton, Oldham, UK is well-known to those skilled in the art. The Compact Hopper™ dispenses coins using a rotor and a pair of sprung fingers. The rotor has a plurality of apertures in which coins collect and as the rotor rotates, coins are dispensed from the bottoms of the apertures by the action of the sprung fingers. Rotors with different sized apertures are used for dispensing different sized coins.
In the Compact Hopper™, the rotor rotates on a central shaft. Consequently, coins having diameters greater than the radius of the rotor could not be dispensed.
United Kingdom patent application no. 2,369,229 discloses a coin dispensing apparatus which can dispense coin having diameters greater than the radius of the rotor. This is achieved by connecting the rotor to a foot by a offset connecting element like a crank and connecting the foot to a drive shaft. A problem with this apparatus is that it requires major modification of the rotor bed, making it unsuitable for retrofitting.